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porch of the peasant, came originally from North America; while 
the lavender which the farmer’s wife deposits among her snow-white 
napery in the household linen-chest, is a native of the south of Europe. 
So, too, are the rosemary, the mignonette, the lily, and the pink. 
English shrubberies are indebted to Hungary for the “golden tresses” 
of the laburnum, to Portugal for the laurel, to Italy for the bay tree, 
and to the Levant for the weeping willow. The common daffodil, 
“ that comes before the swallows’ dare,” is of Italian lineage, the wild 
foxglove is a denizen of the Canary Isles, and the passion-flower, with 
its sacred symbols, is a native of South America. In fact, if you 
were to strip our English flower gardens, green lanes, woods, and 
meadows of their exotic decorations, you would rob them of half their 
beauty, and English descriptive poetry of half its charm. To the best 
of my belief, England does not possess so much as one indigenous veget¬ 
able; and, until the time of the Tudors, what little garden stuffker scor¬ 
butic population,did consume was imported from the Netherlands. You 
may remember that Shakspeare makes Sir Andrew Aguechcek account 
for the did ness of his mind by observing, “ I am a great eater of beef, 
and I believe that does harm to my witand, in the absence of any 
succulent vegetables, his excessive consumption of animal food is not 
at all surprising. Nor, considering their very restricted range of diet, 
can we feel much surprise at Queen Elizabeth’s robust maids of 
honour making such heavy meals of bread, beef, and beer, as they are 
reported to have done. About tills time, however, it seems to have 
occurred to our beef eating,beer-bemused, and slow-witted fore-fathers, 
that it would be cheaper to import garden seeds than vegetables, and 
more wholesome to eat newly-cut cabbages, than to feed upon such 
half-rotten garbage as was brought over from Holland, in the holds 
of broad-bottomed and slow-sailing luggers ; and having once opened 
their mind 3 to this conviction, they began to cast their eyes over the 
four quarters of the world in search of vegetables. So, in course of 
time, they procured brocoli, beaus, and cauliflowers from Greece ; peas 
from Spain ; carrots and celery from Flanders ; asparagus and kidney 
beans from Asia ; lettuce, artichokes, and cabbage from Hulland ; 
parsley from Egypt; and potatoes from South America ; and thence¬ 
forth the kitchen garden formed as indispensable an appurtenance to 
the mansion and the manor-house as the pleasaunce, the buttery-hatch, 
or the bowling-green. Of indigenous fruits, also, Old England was 
lamentably destitute. All she could boast of was a few crude berries, 
growing wild upon brambles; for I am doubtful whether even the 
crab was native to her soil. Most of the fruits which now flourish 
in her gardens, hot-houses, and orchards (none of which fruits, by the 
way, are said, upon the authority of Mr. Hawthorne, to bo compar¬ 
able in flavour with an American turnip), were introduced between 
the years 1520 and 1600. Italy sent her the mulberry ; Syria the 
apple and the plum ; Portugal the grape; Persia the nectarine and 
peach ; Flanders the gooseberry, the finer descriptions of cherry, and 
the strawberry j Greece the currant and the apricot; Austria the 
